Marc Bloch — one of the most distinguished 20th Century historians – is the author of Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940. Serving as a staff offi cer, Bloch witnessed the fall of France in 1940 from the front line. This book is so interesting from the methodological point of view, because we are presented here with a historical source created by a historian, who additionally knows how an ideal type of historical evidence ought to be written. This French historian thought that history is also written to give contemporaries lessons on how to avoid the mistakes of the past. This is an important message of Strange Defeat.
This essay contains reflections on the problems of discourse that appear in analyzing written historical sources. The author refers to Krzysztof Gajewski’s book, Reprezentacje komunizmu. PRL z perspektywy badań literackich i kulturowych [The Representation of Communism: The PPR from the Perspective of Literary and Cultural Studies] (2018). The primary findings concern the necessity of taking into account the linguistic framework of the given era.
The article will consider research directions on a social history of disability based on the social and the human-rights models of disability, as well as the concept of disability included in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The article contains the basic methodology of historical research on the subject, the main research fields, and an overview of primary sources. In addition, the periodisation of the subject was introduced.